Author McEwan craves time out of limelight

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - Ian McEwan wants a little privacy. It sounds like an odd wish for a man promoting his new novel "On Chesil Beach", but the award-winning 58-year-old has had a torrid six months in the public gaze.

In November, he was forced to deny suggestions he plagiarised someone else's work, and two months later it was revealed that he had a long-lost brother who was abandoned as an infant by his mother after being born out of wedlock.

"I feel a period of obscurity would be very good for me," McEwan told Reuters in an interview.

The author of acclaimed works "Atonement" and "Amsterdam" said he felt uncomfortable in the media limelight.

"It certainly isn't pleasant. The world sort of shrinks, but it doesn't last for long. It's that restlessness of the press which on the one hand can be bewildering, but is also the thing that saves you because the monster needs to be fed.

"It will spew you out having chomped on you a bit."

In 2002, McEwan discovered that his brother, whose adopted name was David Sharp, was given away in 1942 when only a few weeks old. Sharp revealed his secret to the press in January.

McEwan's mother Rose fell pregnant during an affair with David McEwan while her husband was at war and decided to give the baby away. After her husband was killed in the war, she went on to marry McEwan. In 1948 the couple had Ian.